What’s Trending in Marketing: Top Content of the Week

August 15, 2014

A common challenge for marketers is striking the right balance between learning and doing. To achieve long-term success, we must keep our finger on the pulse of emerging insights, trends and tactics while still devoting enough time to the activities that drive results.

Our hope is that this weekly roundup of trending content serves as a convenient destination for marketers looking for an efficient way to stay abreast with what’s happening in the industry. Of course if you prefer to get your knowledge on the go, LinkedIn Pulse can also deliver fresh insights from the best and brightest minds in business.

To catch you up on the best from the blogosphere, here are 10 marketing content contributions that earned clicks and shares this week:

3. 4 Mistakes Marketers Make When Trying to Go “Viral” David Spitz feels marketers would be better off using the term “spreadable media” rather than “viral content.” Regardless of your preferred term, Spitz aims to help you avoid the common pitfalls of trying to go viral in this post from the Harvard Business Review blog.

4. 60:30:10 is the New 80/20 Rule The Pareto Principle states that “20% of your priorities will give you 80% of your production IF you spend your time, energy, money and personnel on the top 20% of your priorities.” In this post from the LinkedIn publishing platform, Jeremy Waite explains how modifying the Pareto Principle can lead to even better results. You’ll love how he relates the new rule to social listening.

5. I See Content Everywhere Thousands of marketers routinely flock to The Moz Blog for Whiteboard Friday. In this installment, MozCon community speaker Mark Traphagen helps marketers develop “content eyes” – a vital organ that contributes to the creation of fresh, interesting content.

6. What You Can Learn About Marketing From an ‘Icy’ Phenomenon If you’ve been wondering why people everywhere are dumping buckets of ice water over their heads lately, Entrepreneur contributor John Brubaker provides the story behind the inspiring phenomenon. He also shares his recipe for the “secret sauce of a phenomenon.”

7. Visual Content: The Key to Effective Storytelling In this Content Marketing Institute guest post, Ryan Farrell uses his memories (or lack thereof) of the rock and roll stories his dad told him as a testament to the power of visual storytelling.

8. The Future of Social Media Content Strategy is Really Déjà Vu Content Marketing Institute contributor Jonathan Crossfield takes marketers on a trip down memory lane in this cautionary tale. Crossfield serves up a reminder, replete with historical anecdotes, that the safe play for strategists is to pour effort into quality over all else.

10. Cracking the SEO Code for 2015: Tactics to Love vs. Leave With the increased ability of search engines to fulfill queries with quality content, SEO has transformed from a job title to a job description. In this SlideShare, Wizard of Moz Rand Fishkin provides plenty of knowledge that will help marketers add the SEO job description to their marketing resume.